Speaker 1: So jur the next twenty odd minutes on a show
Speaker 1: we are joined by Jerry Seinfeld won the World's Best Comedians,
Speaker 1: not as best comedians, but postly for me, I think
Speaker 1: one of the very best to ever do it. I
Speaker 1: shot Ricky Gervas and email over the weekend because I
Speaker 1: know the two of them friends, and I said, look,
Speaker 1: you know who do you think who's on the mount
Speaker 1: Rushmore of stand up comedians? And he said, you start
Speaker 1: with Jerry. Jerry's one of the greatest stand up comedians.
Speaker 1: You can see a topic Jerry does a topic, say
Speaker 1: about marriage, which every comedian's probably done their take on marriage,
Speaker 1: but there's something about the way Jerry Seinfeld does it
Speaker 1: where it's like he goes back down the mine that
Speaker 1: so many comics have been down and we'll do again,
Speaker 1: and finds a different scene down there, or a different
Speaker 1: way of doing the gold or bringing back gold back
Speaker 1: up about it. I saw him live about five years
Speaker 1: ago and he did this twenty minute routine about marriage
Speaker 1: and it was so like the final take on it.
Speaker 1: In this stadium is playing in London, fifteen thousand people.
Speaker 1: Every single professional stand up comedian in the UK was there.
Speaker 1: We're all there, and then all the writers Jesse was
Speaker 1: there was written succession, every single comedy writers there, you know,
Speaker 1: in amongst fifteen thousand fans, and you can all see
Speaker 1: the comedians all looking at each other. I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna bother doing anything about marriage anymore. Jerry's just even
Speaker 1: the definitive word. And also the sitcom Seinfeld. Even if
Speaker 1: if you see it on TV, it's on stan just
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, half an half, you want an instant way
Speaker 1: to cheer yourself up, it is one of the best
Speaker 1: sort of natural antidepressants you can give yourself. Watch half
Speaker 1: our episode, any of them of Seinfeld, one the best
Speaker 1: sitcoms ever. So to me, I think he's a truly
Speaker 1: gifted guy. And this book he's got out, which is
Speaker 1: why it's chatting to us and why he's doing promotion
Speaker 1: at the moment. The book's got out. The moment is
Speaker 1: all of his stand up routines over the last forty
Speaker 1: five years. He breaks it up with a fresh chapter
Speaker 1: about each decade he did stand up, going back to
Speaker 1: the seventies. What's really interesting is when you read the
Speaker 1: routines on the page you're reading it in Jerry's very
Speaker 1: distinctive voice. You kind of got Jerry's in a monologue
Speaker 1: in your head. But what's great is it gives you
Speaker 1: appreciation of the real raft that he puts into stand
Speaker 1: up He's got such a very precise way of using
Speaker 1: language to turn a phrase to unlock an even bigger
Speaker 1: laugh that sometimes I was reading some of the lines
Speaker 1: on there, just staring off at a distance, going on, wow,
Speaker 1: how did he come up with that? You appreciate what
Speaker 1: approach he's got to his craft, you know, stand up
Speaker 1: comedy and turn it into an art form. So anyway,
Speaker 1: here's our two part interview to the next twenty minutes
Speaker 1: with Jerry Seinfeld. It's the only interview he's doing on
Speaker 1: Australian radio and I hope you enjoy it. Let me
Speaker 1: know what you think now, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2: Ladies.
Speaker 1: You know an Australian radio exclusive they called Jerry Seinfeld
Speaker 1: the nicestuy in Hollywood. Christian O'Connell show proudly presents Jerry Jerry, Jerry.
Speaker 2: Jerry, Yes, Jerry Seinfeld, Jerry, Jerry's Seinfeld. Here's the always
Speaker 2: entertaining Jerry Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: Christian O'Connell, Jerry Seinfeld welcome to the show. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much for freeing out some time so to.
Speaker 2: Be on the air and my beloved Australia.
Speaker 1: So listen, where about to you right now? Are you
Speaker 1: a home Jerry?
Speaker 2: I am at home? Yes?
Speaker 1: And are you sick to death now of this kind
Speaker 1: of at home showbis? Do you just want to get
Speaker 1: back out to actually proper showbis because showbiz doesn't belong
Speaker 1: indoors in our homes, does it?
Speaker 2: Jerry agree, I'm sick of it. Don't just stop, just
Speaker 2: say we'll be back when things are normal. How sick
Speaker 2: are you of hearing the social distance? And wear a
Speaker 2: mask and wash your hands. We get it already.
Speaker 1: And also we're just sick of seeing inside everybody else's homes.
Speaker 1: You've got to rearrange that bookcase so that you look intelligent.
Speaker 1: You've got to like set dress your home of it.
Speaker 1: You must be sick of it.
Speaker 2: I don't think if you're going to have those if
Speaker 2: you have to prove you've read those books, believe to prove.
Speaker 1: It should be a test that this's conducted mid interview.
Speaker 2: It be some verification that those are your books and
Speaker 2: you read them.
Speaker 1: And you're so smart, and is it hard with your teenagers.
Speaker 1: Are your kids all back at home? Jerry?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're in and out. They're in and out.
Speaker 1: Because it's hard with teenager. I've got teenage daughters and
Speaker 1: we're still in lockdown here in Melbourne, and teenagers just
Speaker 1: seem to have this innate sense where they want to
Speaker 1: get away from you, don't they so trapping them in
Speaker 1: It's like wild animals. It's hard, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is. I get a huge kick out of
Speaker 2: it because I remember being like that. You know this
Speaker 2: forget about you think why as a parent, you think,
Speaker 2: why would they want to get away from me? I
Speaker 2: love them so much? Don't they like that? No? They
Speaker 2: hate that. They hate it.
Speaker 1: I remember years ago when they were younger, they would
Speaker 1: get so excited when I were coming from work. Now,
Speaker 1: when you just appear in the they're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so great to be on the other side
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: How did you take to being a dad, Jerry? Did
Speaker 1: it come naturally? Was that something you worked at?
Speaker 2: I had to work at it. I mean I enjoyed
Speaker 2: it enormously, but I had no idea that there were
Speaker 2: things expected of me, there were duties, and responsibilities that
Speaker 2: came along with us.
Speaker 1: Standard was a very selfish, lonely pursuit.
Speaker 2: You look at you know, so I'm still still happiest
Speaker 2: like that. I very much like to be alone by myself,
Speaker 2: very happy.
Speaker 1: But then you've got to reconcile that with your wife
Speaker 1: needing you to go and do stuff with the kids
Speaker 1: and take them school shoe sharpage.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, really there was some There was a lot
Speaker 2: of friction there as I recall, can you help me please?
Speaker 2: And I would think with what you seem to be
Speaker 2: doing fine?
Speaker 1: And what do you think the difference is now is
Speaker 1: a dad between when they were younger, as young kids
Speaker 1: and now as teenagers. It's a very It's kind of
Speaker 1: like two different periods of being a dad, isn't there
Speaker 1: There's the younger kids and now the teenagers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm good at this part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more enjoyable this part. Why do you enjoy
Speaker 1: this bit more, Jerry?
Speaker 2: Because I like to argue, I like to debate, and
Speaker 2: and I like to be judgmental. That's very useful, you know.
Speaker 2: But moms, by the time the kid gets to the teens,
Speaker 2: moms have had it. They're sick of it. But I'm
Speaker 2: just waking up now. I'm just getting into it now.
Speaker 1: It's like you've come out of hibernation, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was sitting there reading a magazine for
Speaker 2: the first fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Jerry, I loved your book. Is this anything? I thought
Speaker 1: it was great? This year you had the Netflix special
Speaker 1: and now you've got the book. You're in your mid sixties.
Speaker 1: Is there a feeling that you want to have some
Speaker 1: kind of permanent document of what you did?
Speaker 2: Bullseye? That is exactly right. That's why I did both
Speaker 2: of these things, just because for myself, I wanted to
Speaker 2: feel like I handed in my final paper of my career.
Speaker 2: And I hope to do lots more things and be
Speaker 2: around a lot longer. But I thought this, I need
Speaker 2: to put this down on record, just for my own
Speaker 2: sense of completion.
Speaker 1: And are you happy now at sixty six? Do you
Speaker 1: know who you are more than when you were in
Speaker 1: your twenty or your thirties?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, I think most people would say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you care less ways that. Do you care
Speaker 1: less about what people think about you?
Speaker 2: Oh? For sure, not that I ever really did that much,
Speaker 2: you know what, I care what audiences think. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: somebody asked me recently about some critic who wrote something
Speaker 2: is like, there's nothing less important to a comedian than
Speaker 2: a critic. We already everyone in the audience is a critic.
Speaker 2: And I don't think these critics understand when they write
Speaker 2: a review of your show. We've already left town with
Speaker 2: the money. Picture me on a plane with the cat.
Speaker 1: And when did it all start? Jerry? You must have
Speaker 1: gone into comedy at a young age. Who is it that? Yes,
Speaker 1: who is it first lit that little fire in you?
Speaker 1: That spark? Or maybe I could do this, or there's
Speaker 1: a power to it.
Speaker 2: Well, honestly, I never thought I could do it. I
Speaker 2: never thought I could do it. They were like Olympic
Speaker 2: athletes to me. I just I don't know how they
Speaker 2: do that. You know, when you watch the Olympics, we
Speaker 2: see these people, we recognize that they're humans, right, they're
Speaker 2: like us. They're humans. But that's that's the only group
Speaker 2: that we're both a part of. Other than that, they're
Speaker 2: they're completely freakish humans. So that's what comedians were to me.
Speaker 2: And I never thought I had any particular talent for it.
Speaker 2: I just loved it, though.
Speaker 1: And did you at a young age? Did you start
Speaker 1: to write comedy out. Would you write jokes that you
Speaker 1: saw on the edge side of and show.
Speaker 2: Well, I would write them down. I'd write jokes on
Speaker 2: TV that I saw that I liked that, I would
Speaker 2: write it down to remember it, which I found out
Speaker 2: my father also did when he was young. He when
Speaker 2: he was in the army. He was in World War
Speaker 2: Two in the Pacific, in the Philippines, not that far
Speaker 2: from Australia, and I remember him telling me like, as
Speaker 2: you could easily imagine being in a war effort like
Speaker 2: that so far from home for years at a time,
Speaker 2: the jokes must have traveled through those groups of people.
Speaker 2: It must have been one of their great tools of survival.
Speaker 2: And my father would keep them in a little metal box.
Speaker 2: He would write them down. It was more joke jokes,
Speaker 2: you know that people used to tell a lot in
Speaker 2: the old days, and he used to keep a track
Speaker 2: of them. So that certainly was something that he handed
Speaker 2: down to me, was this appreciation of jokes as something
Speaker 2: more than just, you know, any other type of conversation.
Speaker 1: So growing up in your house was laughter or important
Speaker 1: with mom and dad.
Speaker 2: Funny, oh yeah, yeah, very funny my dad particularly, but
Speaker 2: my mom was a great laugher. She just howled at
Speaker 2: all this stuff my father did. My father used to
Speaker 2: always talk about dying and make fun of that, and
Speaker 2: you know, he used to talk about the type of
Speaker 2: box that he wanted, and my mother would say stop, stop.
Speaker 1: But then where does he go from this love of
Speaker 1: comedy and of being in awe of its magical powers
Speaker 1: and then going to do your actual first stand up gigs?
Speaker 1: I mean, how old are you when you did your
Speaker 1: first gig get characterizing Star?
Speaker 2: I guess, let's see, that would be seventy five. I
Speaker 2: would be nineteen twenty years old.
Speaker 1: Then, yeah, that's really young. So we're just.
Speaker 2: Knee knocking terror, just absolute terror. I had no idea
Speaker 2: if I had any business even trying this, and well,
Speaker 2: you know, like it would be like doing well, like
Speaker 2: a cliff dive in Acapulco or something. You know those
Speaker 2: guys they dive, They wait for the water to come
Speaker 2: in at the right time and then they dive. That's
Speaker 2: what it felt like. So in my last special on Netflix,
Speaker 2: twenty three Hours to Kill, it starts with me jumping
Speaker 2: out of a helicopter over the Hudson in New York City.
Speaker 1: That's where you do the dive.
Speaker 2: And it's because that's what it felt like to go
Speaker 2: into comedy. It felt like jumping out of a helicopter
Speaker 2: and I had no idea what was in that river?
Speaker 2: I just jumped.
Speaker 1: And what do you remember from your first gig? Do
Speaker 1: you ever still think about that, that first gig where
Speaker 1: it all started?
Speaker 2: I do, Yeah, I think about it.
Speaker 1: What can you remember?
Speaker 2: I remember the quiet? I remember that.
Speaker 1: That would that would stay with you, that memory with it.
Speaker 1: The silence.
Speaker 2: You really it's really quiet up there when they introduce
Speaker 2: you and you get up to the microphone and there's
Speaker 2: not a sound in that room and you realize, oh,
Speaker 2: they're not they're not even in a good mood, let
Speaker 2: alone laughing. The thing that's, you know, gets you along
Speaker 2: is you're around a lot of other people doing the
Speaker 2: same thing, and then you do this and it's not
Speaker 2: very good, and you come off stage and you talk
Speaker 2: to other people who also just had the same experience,
Speaker 2: and now all of a sudden, you're in a club
Speaker 2: with these other people who are having these this you know,
Speaker 2: brutalizing emotional experience and pursuing this absurd dream and being
Speaker 2: in that club, I mean to me, was just that
Speaker 2: that was everything I wanted in life right there. I
Speaker 2: just want to be in the club. You know, people
Speaker 2: say I'm a great comedian, or I'm this, or I'm
Speaker 2: not that great or you know, I don't care what
Speaker 2: people think. I just want to be in the club.
Speaker 1: It's just weird because that still comes across the like
Speaker 1: comedians in cars. You know, you see your absolute joy
Speaker 1: in hanging out with other funny people. And one of
Speaker 1: my favorite episodes is the one with Eddie Murphy where
Speaker 1: you're so reverential to Eddie Murphy. To him, I think
Speaker 1: you called him the special one or the magic one.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how you still bow down to to Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1: Do you think he's the greatest to ever do it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, you know. To me, comedy is it's like
Speaker 2: a flavor, you know, like me personally, I love Marin
Speaker 2: Ea sauce. But that doesn't mean it's the world's greatest flavor.
Speaker 2: It's just what I like. That's why they have all
Speaker 2: these different restaurants, will always different foods. Everybody likes something different,
Speaker 2: so everything everything that exists, somebody loves it and somebody
Speaker 2: hates it. So there's no greatest.
Speaker 1: Are you still keeping up some kind of regular writing routine.
Speaker 1: Do you still have a set days or set times?
Speaker 1: Do you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I love that. It's like those old surfers. You
Speaker 2: ever see those old surfers that just keep paddling out
Speaker 2: every day. They're all by themselves, they live on some
Speaker 2: island in Hawaii or something. They just paddle out and
Speaker 2: catch some waves. That's what it is for me. It's
Speaker 2: just a daily thing. Let's paddle out and see if
Speaker 2: we can catch some waves.
Speaker 1: And do you sit just down and you see what
Speaker 1: comes up? Or have you got a couple of ideas
Speaker 1: that you're working on? What are you working on at
Speaker 1: the moment, for example, is there a big playing with.
Speaker 2: Tons of ideas. I was just talking to a guy
Speaker 2: before I was talking to you, and he said a
Speaker 2: quick question, and I thought, well, what what is a
Speaker 2: quick question? People say quick question? I don't even know
Speaker 2: what that means. And it was just so sick of
Speaker 2: hearing it. So I'll jot that down. I go, I
Speaker 2: want to do a bit about I'm sick of hearing
Speaker 2: quick question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one ever says long question, do they?
Speaker 2: Yeah, a long question? Long question?
Speaker 1: Well, listen, Jerry, we're running out of time. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much for chating to us. I love the book
Speaker 1: and on behalf of so many people listeners. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for working so hard at your gift and
Speaker 1: craft you make. You make so many thank hey, pleasure.
Speaker 1: All right, take care, Jerry. Hopefully we can see you
Speaker 1: in the next couple of years again doing stand up.
Speaker 1: You're well, all right, Take care Jerry. Bye.
Speaker 2: I have a good time.